A study of 2-lobe symmetric hole entry hybrid journal bearing operating with non-Newtonian lubricant considering thermal effects

•Thermohydrostatic analysis of a 2-lobe hole entry hybrid journal bearings.•Influence of temperature rise on non-Newtonian lubricant and bearing performance.•Comparative study of isothermal (IHS) and thermal (THS) cases.•Bearing geometry may have a significant effect on bearing performance.

This paper presents the thermohydrostatic solution of 2-lobe symmetric hole entry hybrid journal bearing compensated with orifice restrictor and operating with cubic law lubricant. Simultaneous solutions of Reynold׳s, energy and conduction equations have been obtained by using finite element method and a suitable iterative scheme. The performance characteristics parameters of 2-lobe symmetric bearing system have been presented for various bearing geometries and nonlinearity factors. The numerically simulated results of the study indicates that the variation of viscosity of cubic law lubricant due to temperature rise and bearing geometry changes the bearing performance quite significantly.